Matt Hardigree

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:30 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

1st Gear: MyFord BadTouch

Advertisement

Consumer Reports, whatever you feel about them, has been adamant that automakers should be dinged for having dinky, complex, unresponsive infotainment systems. Car designers hate buttons, but people still love them.

Alan Mulally wasn't the first nor the most popular choice to take over Ford in 2006. But after …
Read more Read more

"We have no change to our plan and I love serving Ford and we don't comment on speculation," Mulally said Thursday in response to a question about whether he has talked to Microsoft officials.

Hmm...

3rd Gear: People Still Buying CarsI think we've finally hit recession fatigue. People have started to accept uncertainty as the natural order of things and are finally going on with the business of buying cars The Wall Street Journal reports.

Daimler is up. Ford is up. Hyundai, which is stuck with a rising won and frequent strikes, is up.

That growth is coming from Asia, emerging markets, and the United States. Europe? They're still kind of in the shitter.

4th Gear: Aluminum Up!

Consequently, if you're going to build a ton of cars to meet demand you're going to need a ton of aluminum the WSJ reports. Or, more specifically, about 164,532 tons from Japan alone.

Volume rose to 164,532 metric tons last month from 158,835 tons a year earlier, the Japan Aluminium Association said in a report today. Demand from the auto industry expanded for the first time in 14 months as consumers rushed to buy vehicles before the government raises the sales tax to 8 percent next April from 5 percent, it said.

5th Gear: Uh Oh Volvo Trucks

Much as we love Volvo Truck ads, something is rotten in the, uh, province of Västergötland and Bohuslän.

Volvo's new trucks are so easy to drive, a hamster could do it! No, really. Volvo Trucks built …
Read more Read more

Volvo AB's earnings were down way more than people expected and Bloomberg puts the blame on a strengthening krona (Sweden's currency). They'll have to cut 2,000 jobs to make up the difference, they say.

The Argentinian peso dropped 21 percent against the krona in the 12 months through Sept. 30, and the Brazilian real fell 11 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yen plunged 22 percent and the dollar declined 2.3 percent.